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Notes -
It is?
It's not unique to Christianity, but the Western form of linear history which seized the minds of Whigs and the like definitely sees its origins in Christian metaphysical views of time contained between Genesis and Judgement Day.
Though interestingly, in the mind of Christians that linear progression was very much not eternal or infinite, this world will exist for a finite amount of time until His return. The advent of secularism didn't destroy these metaphysics but judgement got replaced by apotheosis and the awesome power of the machine convinced many they were on a road to a heaven on Earth.
Saint Thomas More was not a Buddhist.
The western form of linear time does not solely see it in such things. If the point is merely the linearity (as opposed to cyclicality) of time, you see that in the sentence immediately prior to that I quoted before. If the point is that it's linear with a good ending, well, that is a little better of a match, but Christianity is decidedly unclear about whether things will be getting better or not prior to the return of Christ. On the other hand, you can see a sort of enlightenment-style linearity in Aeschylus' Oresteia, several hundred years before the coming of Christ, where the cyclical vengeance of the furies is tamed and put an end to by the enlightened and civilized gods of Athens.
Of course, I don't imagine Aeschylus was the direct precursor of modern progress—I think that's probably closer to being a result of technological growth and advances in scientific knowledge giving people the often accurate sense that they knew more and could do more than all who came before them.
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